During its periodic listing of the world’s billionaires, Bloomberg recently came up with an interesting analysis of wealthy Indian families and their rich heirs. Some of the names were well known like Adanis and Ambanis, and some were low profile types like supermarket chain DMart promoter Radhakishan Damani.
The young sons and daughters of top 10 industrialists are collectively worth $382 billion (₹3.18 trillion or lakh crore), according to the analysis. This is three times more than what the equivalent Chinese heirs can expect to inherit.
The analysis also points out that in many Indian companies, it is common for founders to hold 50 per cent stake or more in their operations, hence appointing children to public boards tends to be seen as a natural progression. In other markets, this would be seen as a breach of corporate governance.
They belong to the top one per cent who own 40.1 per cent of the country's wealth, the highest since 1961, and their share of total income was 22.6 per cent, the most since 1922, according to Paris-based World Inequality Lab. It claims India has entered the 'Billionaire Raj' and the inequality today is greater than the British Raj days.
Now cut to the rest of the young men and women of the rest of India. The country is often described as a youthful nation with the median age being 28 years, which means that nearly half the population is below that age. It is 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western Europe, and 49 in Japan.
Around a decade ago, many used to gush about the demographic dividend India could reap as China and many other countries had done in the past. But to attain that the younger population must have access to quality education, adequate nutrition and health.
It goes without saying we never got anywhere close to fulfilling those parameters. In fact, we now have nearly 80 crore people or 60 per cent of the population relying on government rations.
A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) paints a dismal picture on the employment front. It points out that the youth form over 80 per cent of India's unemployed population.
What is even more disturbing is that those with higher educational qualifications are the worst hit. The ILO report says the proportion of young individuals with secondary education or higher among the total unemployed youth rose from 35.2 per cent in 2000 to 65.7 per cent in 2022.
The report highlighted that the highest youth unemployment rates were observed among those with graduate degrees, a trend particularly impacting women.
Even elite institutions such as IITs and IIMs that are generally immune to unemployment statistics are now facing the heat.
To a middle-class household, a son or daughter making it to these institutions is seen as a high road to professional nirvana. The presence of many Indian-origin CEOs in top US technology firms like Google, Microsoft, and IBM has only reinforced this belief.
However, many of these institutions are now finding it difficult to provide placements to their students and are reaching out to their old students to help them out.
Even for those who got placements, the salary package offered is much more modest, and students with lackluster scores are settling for jobs with less than Rs 10 lakh per annum package.
Software firms which used to take a lion’s share of fresh graduates from engineering colleges and business schools have tightened their belts. This year their intake was lowest in 20 years. Biggies like Infosys and TCS have put hiring on hold for many quarters as they claim they have a significant number of freshers on the bench and are working on better employee utilisation.
This is the condition of upper-class white-collar job seekers. Now as we move down the pecking order the scenario only becomes bleaker.
One of the most visible tell-tale sign of this distress is the substantial rise in the number of farm workers. The agriculture sector has now added around 60 million in the past four years. This only reflects the lack of opportunities in other sectors. Youth are taking up agriculture for want of any suitable job opportunity.
Recruitment exams for government jobs attract candidates that are exponentially higher than the vacant posts. Uttar Pradesh conducted recruitment tests in February for over 60,000 police constables, and over 48 lakh turned up to write the exam in 2,400 centres. Many of them were overqualified and from other states.
Another sign of desperation is jobless Indian youth queuing up to work in conflict zones like Israel. They are paying hefty sums to agents to get these jobs. Many told journalists it is better to die in Israel and die of starvation in India.
Many are trying to smuggle themselves into the West. Indians are currently the third-largest group of undocumented immigrants in the US, their numbers having surged faster than those from any other country.
In the UK, Indians rarely used to figure among the undocumented ‘boat people’ who take the risky voyage from Calais in France to Dover in England in small boats. A good number of them come from countries like Afghanistan to escape state persecution. But now there is a steady rise in the number of Indians taking this route, baffling the British authorities as India is considered a ‘safe’ country, unlike say Afghanistan or Syria.
The situation in many households is dire. A recent Reserve Bank of India report says India's net household savings are at a 47-year-old low. Household net savings are the total money and investments families have, like deposits, stocks, and bonuses, minus any money they owe, like loans and debt.
On the other hand, there has been a sharp jump in household debt in the same period.
While some dub it as a sign of rising consumerism and the confidence among the people that their income will rise enough to pay off the debts, others see it as an alarming situation. They point out that in a country with low per-capita income, people increasingly relying on debt is a worrying sign.
Thus while the top one per cent has heirs born with silver spoons that have diamond-studded handles, for the rest it is a struggle to stay afloat amid shrinking opportunities and a dwindling number of stable jobs.
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